Your Company's Story
When competition for top talent is intense, and when there seems to be a glut of available talent, your company's story is important. People stay with organizations they want to be a part of.
Talk about your company's mission, vision, strategy and most current initiatives; and don't just cut and paste the stuff off of your website. Most of the time, those words are not current and don't stir anyone's soul.
I conducted about three dozen searches for the supercenter division of Kmart between 1994 and 1996. This was a very tumultuous time for Kmart. Stock value was at an all time low, Joe Antonini was being forced out as chief executive and the mere mention of the word Kmart would usually get a recruiter a dial tone in response.
We were very successful recruiting an extremely talented and motivated team because we were able to carefully articulate Ron Floto, the new division president's strategy, growth and tactical plans. The vision of the new leadership team was what motivated some of the top retailing professionals in the food industry at that time to leave their current employers to join a team with a bold vision. They bought the story.
I should also add that Ron Floto's strategy turned out to be very effective, producing a $150 million bottom line turnaround. Unfortunately, the corporation ultimately lost focus on the supercenter concept and folded it back in to the general population.
When developing your story for purposes of recruiting, tell the whole story and not just the good parts. If your strategy is working, say so. If your results are not what you had planned, say so. It is only through articulating exactly where you are, and where you are wanting to go that you will be able to identify and attract the ideal candidate(s).
EXAMPLE 1
Founded in 1936, Ralph's is the nation's seventeenth largest food retailer, operating approximately 175 stores with revenues of approximately $4.7 billion. The company currently operates two different store formats, 145 are combo stores while 45 are classified superstores.
With revenues approaching $40 million per store, Ralph's is one of the largest volume operators in the industry. The company is headquartered in Your City, California. Ralph's primary competitors are A&P, Safeway, Shopper's Food and Kroger. The company has, for some time, operated an in-house ad agency.
Ralph's is currently slightly ahead of plan on our very aggressive strategy set in place at the end of 2006. We are outperforming the competition by a wide margin.
Unknown to most, Ralph's is in the process of developing some of the most innovative concepts in the industry. We are developing a totally new shopping format aimed focused on the ever more prevalent dual income family. Included in our new format stores will be large prepared food centers, meals to go centers, ingredients ready to cook centers, phone in order processing, and more. Ralph's is also focused on a top secret market niche currently unoccupied by any food retailer in the western United States. We are projecting retrofit sales performance of +25 -25% combined with 3-5 percentage point gross margin improvement.
Backed by $2.5 million of solid consumer research our mission with these new concept stores is to become THE destination store for the consumer seeking the most attractive total value proposition. Our growth plans for the near future include 25 new stores and 50 remodels per year for the next four years until the entire store base is either new or remodeled.
EXAMPLE 2
For more than thirty years, VPS has helped independent grocers succeed by transforming historic accounting activities into timely, accurate decision support tools. Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, with offices in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Nashville, Tennessee, VPS currently serves approximately 270 operators representing approximately 1,800 supermarkets throughout the U.S. Since its inception, VPS' core services have been built around providing independent retail grocers with the financial information needed to make informed operational decisions on a daily basis. VPS now provides accounting and payroll outsourcing, financial software applications and services, treasury management, payroll/human resources, shrink control & labor scheduling applications. VPS' team of professionals has over three decades of retail grocery experience and are developing solutions that are designed specifically for the retail grocery industry. VPS is considered to be the industry expert in benchmarking, best practices and mission-critical support. VPS is the preferred provider of these services as endorsed by the National Grocer's Association.
VPS is rapidly becoming recognized as The go-to firm for best practices, benchmarking and decision support in the independent supermarket community. The firm's vice president client experience management is becoming an icon in the industry as he delivers talks and white papers relevant to today's independent supermarket operator. VPS is proactive and visible in its efforts to educate the supermarket sector. Typically VPS has new clients approach them after having learned of VPS' prowess and having experienced some significant change event. VPS' revenues have doubled over the last four years and the company is experiencing a groundswell of newly interested potential clients. VPS has built the systems and processes that work and is now endeavoring to build out the human capital infrastructure to support them.
VPS is a dynamically growing ESOP company. 95% of VPS' revenues are recurring income from existing clients. VPS employs approximately fifty professionals and is in a progressive growth mode. Revenues have doubled over the last four years. VPS' overall strategy is to continue to add maximum value to its retail customers while continuing to build the company's ESOP value.
VPS is described as a "nice place to work." Employees at all levels are free and encouraged to voice their opinions and offer suggestions. Empowerment is a catch phrase in some organizations, but not here. Operating as a true ESOP company, VPS authority and autonomy to spend up to $5,000 in order to exceed customer expectations extends to the lowest level employee. The "command and control" mentality simply does not exist at VPS.
These examples are more compelling than the vast majority I see in search specs floating around. While your company may not be undergoing these kinds of monumental changes, you should be able to articulate elements and attributes of your company that make it attractive.